Another school year comes to a close today. For the class of 2012, I wanted to share my sincere congratulations and a few hopes for you.

First – the congratulations. You have worked hard for several years to complete a difficult course of work. You and your loved ones should heartily celebrate a job well done and degree earned with a lot of hard work and long days/nights.

Second – Thank you! I always feel privileged to get to work with smart, energetic young professionals early in their career. Your energy and enthusiasm continues to inspire me. I also want to thank you for your sustained efforts over the last year and a half. Your work has helped your clients be more successful, build the school’s reputation and build your skill set. It means a lot to them, but in particular to me.

Now, my hopes & wishes for you:

Be curious – Don’t stop exploring. You won’t find your passion sitting on the couch.

Be courageous – Refuse to “settle”. Stretch yourself with challenges beyond what you think you can do. Regrets are terrible and some of the biggest start with “I always wished I had…”

Take the long view – Things play out over time. Don’t get too hung up on keeping score on short intervals.

Keep learning – When you stop learning, you stop growing.

Be flexible – Change is constant. Don’t fight it, be it.

Be true to yourself – Do what you think is right and live with the consequences. Don’t let others dictate the terms of your existence.

Work hard, but have fun – Life is too short to be miserable, so have fun. By the same token, few things worth doing are easy, so don’t be afraid to roll your sleeves up and work hard.

Build strong relationships – As one of my favorite country music songs says “it’s a long trip alone”.  You’ll live longer and be happier if you do.

Be useful – I think you’ll be surprised at how many things work out for you when you focus on helping others first.

I wish all of you the best as you move on to bright futures. Please stay in touch and let me know what I can do for you. It’s been a pleasure working with you.

Regards. Phil

Recently we talked about the importance of writing down your perception of any problem you are trying to solve. This time, I’ll focus on taking that problem and building out an analytical framework.

When I teach this material in my Critical Thinking class, I emphasize the efficiency and clarity you gain from a structured approach to problem solving. If writing the problem down (and gaining buy-in) is the first step, then defining (and refining) an approach is the second.

So why should I care about building an “Approach”?

Last time I emphasized the importance of defining “what is the problem/where are we going” by defining your problem and showing it to others to test and refine that definition. It’s critical, but not sufficient.

Next we need to take a well thought out, but rapid, stab at “how are we going to get there?” Think of this step as building a draft roadmap. Without a map, you may know where you are trying to get but good luck finding your way there. (Michele can tell you about my stereo-typical male problems with this!)

Laying out a clear representation of your analytical framework has a number of subtle benefits beyond the obvious ones.

Obvious Benefits

Putting a more detailed view of the problem in print has all of the benefits we discussed regarding problem definition including clarifying your own thinking, exposing it to others for feedback etc.

Because this step involves drilling deeper into the problem and identifying specific questions and research to conduct it also forces you to confront inter-relationships between parts of the problem.

It also allows you to decompose the problem into more discreet bits to work on.

Subtle Benefits

Stakeholder buy in – I feel like I’ve become “Mr. Stakeholder” for the amount of time I talk about it. But without it you are sunk in any group-based decision making process. Sharing and iterating your framework with others accomplishes a few key things:

-       Gives those who agree with you the confidence to support you.

-       Highlights who disagrees with you or is resistant and more importantly forces them to articulate why. This allows you to understand what evidence is required to either persuade or mitigate risk.

-       Generally improves the clarity and focus of the framework when multiple perspectives are included.

Better intuitive understanding of the problem / continual learning – It’s my observation that we only really learn when we get to a point where we have a framework to hang new facts or observations on. My academic colleagues would call this having a “theory base”. Does new data or evidence confirm or challenge your view of the problem? To answer this you have to have a view, but be willing to let it evolve. Without a “theory” you’re just collecting facts…and they may not even be relevant.

Evolving your story – As your understanding evolves, so does your story. My students find that their final presentation is MUCH easier when they are disciplined throughout the process because you have been refining, tuning and clarifying continuously. You can’t get to the end and say “now what do I think?” if you’ve been structured all along.

If it’s so important, why don’t we do it already?

I won’t repeat the past posts observations about time, pressure and misjudging our prior knowledge, but there are a few additional things at this stage worth highlighting.

Difficulty with “unstructured” or “ill-defined” problems – Not all problems are created equal. Some are “well-defined” (limited scope, within the solver’s experience and can be approached with their existing knowledge and skills). Unstructured problems are complex, can appear impossible to resolve and force the solver to move beyond their experience and skills.

What I propose in terms of problem formulation, research design etc. becomes more important the bigger and messier the problem is for all the reasons I’ve mentioned. The margin of error becomes huge the more ill-defined it is and the more continuous course correction needs to be.

Bias towards “having the answer” – I see a bias towards having the answer in many academic and business settings. (We could dub this “assertiveness bias”.) Case discussions in business school can become more about argumentation and winning than they are about discovery. Staff meetings can be about positioning and power. But frankly, it’s not reasonable to look at something briefly and have “THE” answer. Genuine problem solving in a complex environment requires broad thinking and openness to non-obvious answers. Always ask someone to “prove-it”. Facts are friendly, but can take time and effort to build.

Impatience – This is related to “answer bias”. As Veruca Salt yelled at her father, “I want it and I want it now Daddy!” (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for those who might miss the reference.) The boss needs an answer now. The Professor just called on me. To be clear, I am NOT urging you to dither or be indecisive. But where you have the latitude or influence, push for analytical clarity and to “go slow to go fast”. Better process leads to more enduring and insightful answers.

So what do I do?

I propose a simple excel based template that many call an “issue tree”. Working from left to right, it typically will have 4-5 columns depending on the scale of the problem you are working on.

You can tackle the template in any order you choose. Most will start left to right, working from higher level questions into more detailed ones. But if you are getting stuck or lost, try right to left or bounce around. It’s intended to be a tool to capture your thinking and help structure it, not a restrain to it. (So don’t “check your brain at the door”.)

I will assume you are doing this on a project that is reasonably challenging and involves multiple stakeholders. It is still a powerful personal tool, but I’m choosing the more difficult environment to illustrate a few more concepts.

Primary Question (column 1) – What is the highest level/main question you are trying to answer? See a more detailed discussion here.

It seems so obvious. So clear. OK, then try to write it down and get 5 people to agree. My experience and the consistent feedback I get from students and executives is that it is much harder than it seems.

You have to be clear in your own mind and then come to common terms and understanding with others. It can be surprisingly hard, particularly on cross-disciplinary/functional problems.

Sub Questions (columns 2 & 3) – What is the sub-set of underlying questions that if answered will answer the primary question?

Deconstruct the big question/issue into its constituent parts. In consulting, they’ll talk about being “MECE” (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive). You want to make sure you have laid out ALL the questions and made them as distinct and non-overlapping as possible (i.e. don’t have 4 questions all asking essentially the same thing).

This is where things get messy. You have to really work through the relationship between questions, issues and data. You have to wrangle with different levels of detail and aggregation. This is where the bulk of the challenge and heavy thinking lays. You’ll have to debate what questions are most important, what data would be required and how hard is it to get etc. This is the beginning of analytical clarity and the prioritization that has to come. Because you can’t do everything and you won’t have perfect evidence. Ever. (Sorry, but it’s true.)

Analysis (column 4) – What specific sets of analyses and data sources are required to adequately answer the given question?

You aren’t done until you have articulated with (reasonable) specificity where and how you plan to get the evidence required to answer your questions. Will it be surveys? Do we already have the data or do we need to build and launch a survey? Do we have time and can we get approval? You get the idea…

Some evidence takes a significant investment of time and energy to get. This framework helps evaluate whether it’s worth it (and sometimes it isn’t). If it is, it lays out a clear framework for why and helps the justification. Much better to say “we need to launch a survey to answer these xx questions” than it is to basically answer “because we’re not sure what we think and want to go fishing to see if we catch anything good”.

Responsibility (optional column) – Who’s going to do it and by when?

Some project are straightforward enough that this simple template can become the planning document as well. So feel free to add detail as appropriate. If you are working on a complex and large problem, you’ll probably need a more detailed work plan. You can be the judge.

Here’s a very simple generic example of how you might start on a business strategy problem.

Some thoughts about the process:

I still agree with all my points in “Write the Problem Down”, so won’t restate them here. Here are a few more specific to this step.

Go slow to go fast…

In my opinion, this tool is really the linchpin of the overall process. If you get this right, it tends to force you to handle other things well. You could come into this with a weak problem statement, but do a good job here and recover because you have really drilled into core issues. Those might force you to consider scope, stakeholders and other things you had glossed over before.

But if you get this step “wrong” (and by that I mostly mean you don’t drill in seriously) you’ll be without a rudder until you circle back and get squared away. A friend of mine at McKinsey likes to tell students that “your life at the end of the project is largely determined by how well you spend the first week.” Problem and approach definition is what he is talking about.

You won’t be right…..at first.

In the beginning you may not even know what you don’t know. But this tool can become a tracking document for where your thinking is. Again, it will help you in developing a “theory base” and subsequently a “fact base’ for your problem. So don’t get hung up on perfection at the beginning. You won’t be “right”, nor should you be.

This process isn’t sterile, pristine or sacrosanct so don’t get hung up on the process

It’s easy to become a tool junky and get persnickety about process, sometime to the detriment of progress. What matters is that you do the conceptual pieces. If you prefer Mind Manager software, or some other visualization tool, Great! Go for it. The initial pass at this shouldn’t take weeks (or even a week). It should take a few good hours and then begin to iterate it.

You may need to go do some initial work to build this out. It can be in parallel with other work, so long as you are clarifying analytical priorities along the way.

Be sensible

Use a little judgment. The amount of planning and thinking that goes into projects varies based on their scope and risk. So don’t check your brain at the door.

Ya’ll know me and many of you may know Lars, but in case, his profile can be found here. Big take-away is he is an executive search leader who sees a lot of experienced resumes, particularly in the public and NGO spaces.

Resumes: Lars Leafblad – Resume – January 2012  / Phil Miller Resume 

Note: I tried to figure out how to make the resumes cleverly appear in the post, but for readability sake you’ll have to click and they’ll open in a separate window.

Phil’s Impression of Lars’ Resume

As always for me, everything depends on context. I’m going to assume I’m looking at Lars’ resume as if I were another search firm looking to hire him. I’ll comment where I’d ask really different questions if I were hiring him for a different role (like leading an NGO).

Summary Impression

Community oriented connector. Passionate about ideas and bridging what are often silo-ed communities. I bet he knows just about everything going on in his area and is 1 e-mail or call away from whatever information he needs.

I was struck by several things:

1 – This is an interesting guy who is very connected and into A LOT of stuff…

Most of the resume articulates varying forms of community engagement and connectedness. All of page 2 is what I would call “other” stuff. Activities, awards, education etc. That makes sense to me from the perspective of search in the space he works. He’s communicating living in that space, not just working in it. So network and diversity matter a great deal.

If he were applying for an Executive Director role at an NGO, I’d be concerned by Lars’ resume and the relative emphasis on connectedness over delivery.

2  - The brevity of Lars’ position descriptions.

I’m used to a different level of detail in the resumes I see and review.  My resume is more reflective of what I’m used to; an array of focused accomplishments or responsibilities relating to my “day job”.  We all use our real-estate differently and content analysis is a read on what the writer thinks is important relative to their community. He must think the bulk of page 2 is as/more important than depth of descriptions on page 1. In particular, interesting that current role of 4+ years merits only 2 bullets and has no numbers.

3 – It feels like a long list.

There are a lot of awards and community organizations listed. My impression was “he does a lot” and lost interest around the middle of Pg2. Began to feel like my academic colleagues CVs that list their papers. Not unimportant, but past a certain point I reach the “I get it, you’ve written or done” a lot point…

4 – The consistency of his interests and types of engagement.

Lars appears to have been a pro-active connector all the way back, particularly at the intersections of public/private/policy issues. Good thing he’s in search!

What I’d want to probe

Things I’d want to probe:

1 – Consistency and depth of results delivered.

Regardless of the role I’m interviewing him for, I’d spend a lot of time getting Lars to describe the programs and results he’s delivered. There has to be a lot more than what’s on the resume.

2 – How much business have you delivered and how satisfied are your search clients?

This seems self-explanatory, but it’s not highlighted in resume.

3 – What are you most passionate about?

Whenever I see this much activity and diversity of activity I want to know what the underlying drivers are from both a values and an intellectual interest perspective. I want to hear that my position is in the sweet spot, because there sure seem like a lot of other ways you could spend your time outside your “day job”.

4 – Why are you making a change and why did you make past ones?

I always want to know people’s thought process around change. Do I understand it and is it consistent? If not, why not?

Lars’ Response

- Phil makes several astute and insightful comments regarding my resume and background. My resume is more tailored for “PR” and marketing purposes relative to my current role than it is to present myself as a candidate for employment consideration.

- “relative emphasis on connectedness over delivery” – an insightful observation and one that I will take to heart as I think about how to share and present my contributions and results achieved within my role at KeyStone Search and previous professional roles.

- I also agree that my list of civic participation and recognition could be edited and more focused on a few key items. This is a good example of how LinkedIn could be leveraged to share a more in-depth list instead of putting it all on a resume.

- “Why are you interested in making a change at this time?” is a very important question – is the candidate running away from something bad or running towards something new? It can be a mix of both but understanding someone’s motivation for change is important.

Lars’ Impression of Phil’s Resume

I will assume I’m reviewing Phil’s resume for an administrative leadership role with one of our higher education clients.

Summary Impression

Phil is an entrepreneurial and results oriented consultant who has successfully bridged the corporate and academic sectors. He appears to be highly engaged in the Carlson School community and would appear to thrive in roles where he is developing and coaching others.

What leapt off the page at me in his professional experience?

Carlson School:

- Interesting, wonder how he came to have two separate stints in current

role.

- $350K in annual consulting revenue – impressive

- Condense “Additional CSOM Activities” -> Recruiting. Advancement.

Outreach. & highlight key activity under  each

- More visibly highlight “Undergraduate Faculty of the Year in 2010″

recognition – Community validated performance and impact is a powerful thing.

3M:

Role 1:

- $100MM in sales growing 20%+ – impressive

- Securing $2M in new funding – would seem to be innovative and entrepreneurial within a large enterprise

- Lived in China in 2006 – has global experience

Role 2:

- How do you “co-manage”? Tell me more about that structure.

CAPGEMINI:

- Boil down to 2 key takeaways

- May even consider removing it to provide for more room on “Outside

Activities/Honors” – the resume has lots of content and needs more white

space

Education:

- Dual Masters Degrees – impressive

- MA, History? BA, History – why not a historian? Tell me more.

Interesting.

Activities/Honors:

- Put more energy here. Impressive civic leadership w/ UCC.

- Would want to learn more about your running/marathons.

- Great to see coaching skills being honed outside of the workplace as

well.

What I’d want to probe

- Why did you return to CSOM and the higher ed sector?

- Better understand Phil’s management experience – leading direct reports versus coaching/managing others

- What keeps you motivated to continue to innovate within large institutions?

- Tell me about your experience in the classroom. Do you envision teaching more in the future? Less?

- Tell me more about your marathon running and youth coaching outside of the workplace.

- If you were dean of the Carlson School, what would be on your agenda?

- Where are you from? Tell me about your roots.

- How do you define success personally and professionally?

Phil’s Response

It’s always useful to get another set of eyes, particularly with a different perspective and experience.

I’m always torn on my resume as it fuses corporate and academic. I’m genuinely interested and passionate about both, but it can make for a somewhat confusing resume because I am reluctant to shed some older details. For example, Lars’ suggestion to just shed whole Capgemini section is probably right. I need to let it go and tighten up.

The motivations questions are spot on as well. If I looked at my resume my big question would be “have you decided what you are?” My answer would be “yes” and I can tell the story, but it certainly isn’t totally clear from the resume.

I also appreciate the perspective on punching up some of the “interesting” parts of the resume. I tend to be a little too “fact-based” and lose some story value. Having said that, I always coach students to de-empasize how much they reveal in the resume. My advice is to include just enough to prompt an interesting question from those interested.

Lars has a more integrated view of social media. Linked in came up immediately for him. I think about it differently and so hadn’t included my profile on resume. I’ll fix that.

Summary

So that’s what two experienced sets of eyes saw in each others’ resumes. I’d make a few concluding observations.

1 -   Feedback is valuable. Both Lars and Phil have realized they can improve their resume, and they kind of do this for a living J

2 – Think about what you are trying to accomplish with your resume. Lars and Phil’s are different because they are intended for different audiences and have different goals.

3 – Always be “ready now” by keeping your resume relatively up to date. Both of us were able to rapidly exchange content because we didn’t have to build a resume. We had them.

Hope this was interesting. I encourage you to find a resume buddy and do this yourself.

For more on resume construction here are some prior thoughts: http://www.phils-career-blog.com/2008/11/resume-basics/

Well you’re not alone.

I have taught “critical thinking” methods for years now to undergraduate, graduate and experienced professional audiences. The vast majority consistently fail to use a coherent and consistent method of problem solving.

I’m going to focus a few posts this term on some of the core tools and techniques I teach to help individuals and teams be more disciplined in their thought process. If you really engage them you’ll be more efficient and effective as a professional.

The first we’ll call “Problem Definition”. I mean this comprehensively. The core of the exercise is writing down the one sentence question or description of the problem as you see it. But to do that we’ll talk about other aspects of the problem  to think through and document to ensure that we’re not missing “knowable” things from the start.

So why should I care about “Problem Definition”?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

The Cheshire Cat to Alice in Alice in Wonderland

My favorite (and abused) quote about wandering sets up the importance of being hard headed about defining THE question you are trying to answer or problem you are trying to solve. Note the focus on 1 question…not 17.

Let me ask you a rhetorical question. If you don’t know what problem you’re supposed to be solving how will you know when you’re done? …Exactly. You won’t.

It’s impressive how much time can be wasted in an effort to show activity even when people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

There are a number of other really important reasons (stakeholder buy-in, focus, clarifying your own thought process etc.), but “knowing what you’re trying to do” feels like sufficient rationale to me.

If it’s so important, why don’t we write things down more often?

Because we’re busy, think we know more than we do and forget that getting things done often requires others’ input.

Time/Business – We’re all busy so time spent thinking can often feel “wasted” in our frenetic work environment. “I don’t have time for that” is something I hear. Or “it’s ticky-tacky process nonsense, let’s just get going”.

I promise you that it’s important to “go slow to go fast”. Time spent thoughtfully early on will save you time in a number of ways later in the process. You’ll be more efficient.

Knowledge – We are consistently overconfident in what we think we know about problems. It often seems so straightforward so why bother to go through the hassle of a disciplined process?

Well, it’s usually not so obvious. We can mistake symptoms for causes, not understand inter-relationships between issues etc.

One of the strongest teaching points I make to all my students is the power and hidden benefits of writing down your perception of the problem you’re working on. The act of writing it down forces you to clarify your point and get it out of your head. I just taught a group of mature executives at an F500 company who all talked about how much harder it was to do than they thought.

Collaboration & Buy In

Putting a clear stake in the ground in print allows others to more easily give feedback, identify gaps or problems in your thinking and begins the act of gaining buy in. It’s much easier to help you if I understand what you’re thinking and asking my input increases the likelihood of getting to a quality answer with support.

So what do I do?

The basic template I encourage people to use and that I teach has 6 boxes. (It’s very sophisticated.)

1 – Situation – A statement about the current situation that everyone can agree with.

2 – Complication – A brief list and description of any complications that may be facing or challenging the situation (i.e. industry trends, market position). Think “why is there even a problem?”

3 – Stakeholders – A list of individuals or groups affected with brief description of how.

4 – Scope – A list what will and will not be included in the study.

5 – Problem – Your best 1 sentence description of the problem you are trying to solve.

6 – Hypotheses – Propose solution(s) that can be tested by further research and analysis to validate or disprove them.

Problem Definition Template

Why these categories? I’ve found over the years that these are the most critical “starters”.

The situation and complication get you to frame the problem and answer “why are we here?”

Stakeholders forces you to think through who is affected in more depth than I typically see. I put “failure to consider stakeholders” and/or “failure to get buy-in” as top failure modes for projects. The human/soft side often gets in the way, so anticipate this and begin working it early.

Scope forces you to begin thinking about what you won’t do. You never have enough time, resources or data so get ruthless about cutting out what isn’t important.

The Problem Statement becomes the organizing principle for all your thinking and work. If you can’t crisply define it, you aren’t done yet. One of the things that stands out about experienced consultants is how quickly they can cut to the key issue. It’s because they are doing this in their head from experience. They weren’t born able to do it. They recognize patterns through repetition and discipline.

Hypotheses are important to jot down because they become guides to your research. I teach that you should “jump to conclusions, but not anchor on them.” We all are creative and intuitive. It’s OK to think you know the answer(s). This process puts structure around gathering compelling evidence to prove or disprove key assumptions.

Some thoughts about the process:

Iteration is important. It’s hard to get things right in one sitting. Let it breathe. I find that jotting things down alone or in a group and then revisiting is very productive. The act of writing it down gets you thinking, but the thinking continues and evolves. So come back around.

Collaboration is important. The more complex or cross-functional the problem, the more diverse set of inputs you need to get things right. Whether this collaboration comes in group settings or from “walking it around” in 1:1s isn’t important. Get other perspectives. You don’t have to agree with all of them, but they tune your thinking.

Tools are to be used, but don’t get used by them. I teach three main ideas in this area.

1 – “Don’t check your brain at the door”. The point of the tool is to help structure your thinking not substitute for it.

2 –  “GEMO” or “good enough move on” means know when you’re at an appropriate level of clarity and go forward. You could spend a lot of time striving for “perfect”. I’d go for “good” unless you’re designing a heart valve or something requiring “precision”.

3 – “Precision vs. accuracy”. This goes hand in hand with GEMO. Know what level of detail is generally required in your answer or process given where you are. Do you need to be able to say “it’s bigger than a breadbox” or “this is the algorithm for landing the Mars Rover”?

This is part of a thought process. Other tools that I’ll walk through in future posts build off this foundation, so getting it wrong will just force you to come back later. Might as well get it right from the start…

These tools fit into other methodologies. For example, if your organization has a formal project management method that includes a project charter these boxes will look familiar. I still encourage doing this separately and integrating content into charter because these boxes are the juicy ones. The charter is important, but starting with it can become an administrative, rather than an analytical process. You can get bogged down in minutiae.

As with most of what I teach, this seems SO obvious as to be almost simple-minded advice. And yet…I don’t see a lot of people doing it. So I encourage you to take a shot at trying this. It will enhance your effectiveness.

(Here’s part 3 of 3 on some life lessons I took from my parents. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 here.)

Lessons from what happened to them:

Dad and his job loss taught me 3 really big things:

Much like a geological or evolutionary timeline where there are breaks between eras, my childhood had a clear break in 1983. The recession led to his job elimination and he never really bounced back. Pre 1983, Dad was all the good things I have related. Leader, athlete, pillar, dynamic. Post 1983 , he was a shadow of himself and it really changed everything for the whole family.

1 – Shit happens and how you deal with it matters a lot…

Dad really just folded up. Today we’d probably call it clinical depression. As one family friend bluntly put it “at least he didn’t kill himself like some of our friends’ dads.” Nice. Thanks.

But he really was entirely dysfunctional for several years. He couldn’t do the laundry despite Mom working full time. This led to a lot of conflict in the house with me trying to get him going on anything and him not able to.

So I really took away a sense of A) how fragile everything can be, B) how bad it can get in a hurry with no real warning and C) the way just one person’s actions can drive a whole groups.

2 – Your company doesn’t care about you. You are just a number…

So save diligently. And do good service. You are being paid (hopefully well) to do something and your employer deserve your best effort.

But they are your employer. And it is a very rare one that will look out for employees first to the detriment of management, shareholders or customers. So save and stay nimble. You could be here today, gone tomorrow anytime.

This has unrelentingly driven my interest in careers and focus on managing them. I always assume you need to have portable, tangible skills. The best way to keep a job is to be market-ready all the time.

3 – Please yourself first…

…because if you fall apart, everything else is a mess.

He never said this, so I may be reading into his life too much, but I think a major problem for my dad and why he fell apart was that he never really was doing what HE wanted. Whether it was trying to please my grampa who was a very senior executive at an F500 company or trying to meet external expectations of lifestyle or my mom’s needs and preferences; he never seemed to love what he did.

So when you are doing something you don’t really like for others and that path doesn’t work out, it’s probably a bitter pill. That’s why I tell people to “make your own mistakes.”

I think he would have rather been a teacher or minister. But he lacked the courage or drive to follow through all the way on those impulses. Even later in life when he had partially rallied, he’d take a seminary class and substitute teach, but he’d never really dive in.

So I’ve probably been overly conscious and focused on “am I having fun?” throughout my career. This doesn’t mean every moment needs to be joyful or that there shouldn’t be hard times. Those are how you gain the experience earns you choices. But is the macro trend in your career driving you somewhere you want to go? Can you see the place where you’ll be happy and are you actively working toward it?

I LOVE my job and am privileged by who I get to do it with every day. I also have an unconventional job, which is part of the joy in it. I don’t think I’d be here if my Dad’s example hadn’t served as a warning.

Michele (wife & sometimes editor) says “Knowing you I don’t think you really mean this. Because you also subscribe to the Mr B theory (family first). If you meant this, you would regret not staying in China (which I don’t think you do, you may) or other choices. I think you more mean take yourself into strong consideration. but maybe you don’t so I didn’t change it.)

Thanks. The caveat here is everything is context dependent. When we were in China for work I had the opportunity for a long-term career enhancing assignment. M didn’t want to stay with our 2 small kids and hopes for a 3^rd (who turned out to be our Abby). I don’t want to be marginally more excited about my career by making my wife miserable.

So it’s about broad trends and don’t check your brain at the door. Nobody’s perfectly content all the time.

Your children will drive you crazy, but eventually it usually works out…

At times, my mother must have thought I was the worst thing that ever happened to her. I argued, was willful, didn’t take direction, was lazy…the litany of failings go on. We fought. I mean, did we ever fight. I think it was a combination of our personalities, how much time we spent just the two of us and the stress she was under.

But it turns out we ended up best friends. Despite torturing her for years, I doted on her too. Particularly as dad wilted, I was sort of the man of the house and stepped up. As an adult we probably talked 3-5 times a week for more than 30 minutes each time. We’d go on dates when I was home and she liked to strut me around town to her friends.

I keep trying to convince Michele of this as we fight with ours. She often wishes she could consult with my Mom about our oldest because he’s a mini-me. Then she remembers she wouldn’t have been able to because Gran would have said, “what do you mean how will you deal with him? He’s perfect!” Because only Gran would be able to point out any flaws J

Lessons from their relationship:

You can usually make it work if you both want to…

Despite all the issues I outlined above, my parents loved each other and they hung in there. Today they might be divorced in their 50s. What a mess that would have been. The permanence of a bond makes you work through things and so they did. In a 45-year marriage, there were several really god-awful years. But the vast majority were happy I think.

In closing, perhaps the biggest lesson is that whether they are with you physically, they’re always there. They’ve been gone for more than four years now. The pictures of them are older and older every year and they are so dated because our kids are so little in them. But not a single day goes by that I don’t think about them.

I hope my kids learn half as much from Michele and me as I learned from my parents.

So what did your parents teach you?

 Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 here.

(Here’s part 2 of 3 on some life lessons I took from my parents. Part 1 can be found here and Part 3 here.)

Durability of relationships – My dad went to boarding school. He was very tight with a group of 8-10 classmates and their wives. They took a weekend trip together every year when they retired and talked all the time. He was always their “class president” and he loved it. I think his buddies still revered and respected him. They also remembered his kindnesses 50+ yrs after they had graduated.

Two friends’ stories about my dad in particular stuck out to me.

1)    One buddy transferred in after freshman year and was Jewish (in a 1950s Protestant boarding school – they had services every morning). Dad defended him and helped him survive. Mel joked that mydad was really hard on him with practical jokes etc., but it was always in the spirit of INCLUDING him in the group rather than excluding him. Dad tweaking him and taking him under his wing was central to his acceptance at school and he never forgot it.

2)    Another buddy was brilliant but really struggled with the discipline and structure at school. He always felt like Dad’s friendship and riding him kept him in school. He never forgot it either and made a point of telling me the impact Dad had on him.

Below, I’ll touch on how the latter years of Dad’s life were hard on him (I think) and he was in many ways a shadow of his former self. But what was moving was how all his buddies drove from far away and truly loved him. Early relationships are often the deepest.

Everyone deserves a chance and should be judged on their performance…

My dad was a big believer in equal opportunity and performance. He grew up privileged and white in NY and went to boarding school, so I don’t know where this came from. Maybe having an Irish immigrant mother with a big family. Maybe it was idolizing a young Willie Mays as a HUGE NY Baseball Giants fan (he knew exactly where he was when Bobby Thompson hit “the shot heard round the world). Maybe it was playing HS lacrosse against Jim Brown and getting his ass kicked. Maybe it was knowing detractors had painted swastikas on my grampa’s door during WW2 despite his commitment and dedication to the US war effort. Maybe it was his military service where, in the draft era, EVERYONE (more or less) had to serve and seeing the disparate backgrounds guys came from. Maybe it was his deep and abiding faith. Who knows?

But he clearly believed early and strongly in standing up for the weaker guy and giving everyone a shot. Then performance will tell…

This played out both in what values he communicated and taught and in his career. He was a pioneer in diversity hiring in the 1960s at his company. This wasn’t without its social and political challenges in that era. It took a toll on his career as well, but that didn’t really bother him. It was important to do what’s right.

Don’t be whiny. Life’s hard for everyone…

This is a bit of a “suck it up Nancy” message and both my parents believed it. Also a bit of the Irish suffering mixed with a little Protestant work ethic and a sense of original sin thrown in for good measure. Somebody always, always, always has it worse. So get up and go to work. And don’t be whiny. Nobody likes a whiner. And whiners don’t get anything done.

The enduring power of a parent’s love…

I don’t think I ever once questioned how much my parents loved me. Seriously. Never. I may have wished for different parents at times (who doesn’t?), but I never doubted their love.

As I have grown and met many people from many different backgrounds, I’ve come to appreciate what an unusual gift that has been. It gave me confidence to stretch and try things, confidence to persevere through difficulties and the ability to shrug off a lot of things.

My mom was particularly fierce. She could ride me pretty good and we had notorious “high volume” discussions about some of my shortcomings as a child, but woe (and I mean woe) to the person outside the family who criticized me. She seriously took to her grave a grudge against my 1^st grade math teacher who improperly assessed my potential. She’d always say “I can say anything I want about you, but nobody else gets to.” A bit o’ the Irish in her I suppose.

But it created a sense of confidence and self-belief, balanced with a healthy sense of my shortcomings that’s been healthy.

The value of mercy and the fact that some things are best left unsaid…

Three days before my college graduation, I had a minor fender-bender. I was going <10 mph, but my 1973 Cutlass did a number on the Ford Tempo we hit. A heavy metal meets cheap plastic moment with heavy metal carrying the day.

I was stressed and pissed at myself, knowing my mom would get worked up and that I had potentially wrecked the family fun of the graduation. I talked to my dad and he came to the body shop with me. To keep my driving record clean for insurance and to keep the family peace he just wrote a (fairly large to me at the time) check to resolve the situation. It was unsolicited and I assumed I was hosed. Dad was big on taking responsibility and owning your mistakes, so I assumed I’d be owning this one for awhile.

His explanation to me was essentially (paraphrased):

1 – “We both know your mom. This isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but would probably wreck her trip and enjoyment. So why do that if you don’t have to?” This is the leave things unsaid bit…

2 – “My dad (my grampa) was pretty tough, but he always felt like you got one free pass on something dumb but innocent…even if it was a biggie. He bailed me out of a situation that we kept between him and me and now I’m paying it forward. Just remember this when you have kids.” I do.

A Father’s mercy can be a powerful thing.

Funny, but after Dad died this story came up with my mom and 15 years later she still hadn’t been aware. I told her about it around the time of the funeral (needed to because I used it in the eulogy). She laughed and said that; Yes, she would have been pissed and we were probably better off for not having shared.

One more post on what I learned from what happened to them later this week…

 Part 1 can be found here and Part 3 here.

(Author’s note: This is another multi-parter. I couldn’t distill my parents influence down to 1000 words.  Part 2 can be found here and Part 3 here.)

Parents wield a powerful influence on their children. Whether it’s positive or negative, from their presence or their absence, their attention or aloofness; they are dominant figures in each of our development. My folks both passed a number of years ago and as my kids get older (they are 8, 7 and 4 right now), I wanted to capture the impact they had on my conscious self (I assume there are all sorts of influences it would take Dr. Jung or Freud to sort out as well.). What follows is an attempt to disentangle a lifetime’s worth of interactions, love, arguments and ultimately their collective impact with a little distance for reflection.

Profiles

My dad (Dick Miller) was a wonderful man. He was a leader at every level in his life. A four-year class president in high school, fraternity president in college, rapidly promoted executive and a church and community leader. He was intuitive about others’ needs and how to get a lot out of them. He was a great athlete into his 40s, particularly tennis.

My mom (Sue Miller) followed in her newspaper editor father’s path and loved her craft.  An English major in college, she worked alternately for corporations doing communications and as a newspaper editor. I’m pretty sure I was both the joy of her life and the bane of her existence. As my uncle likes to point out “she didn’t come this way (kinda crazy), you did this to her!” Beloved around town she was also a service-oriented leader serving as an officer in multiple non-profits and doing extensive church service. Despite being an otherwise intelligent woman who could quote Milton, she had a serious problem with what my Dad and I referred to as “quasi-historical trash.” Other might call it “bodice ripping chick lit” J I’m an only child and she and I spent A LOT of time alone together.

They loved each other deeply, but also struggled through the normal vagaries of 40+ years of marriage that ended much too early with both their passing from very different cancers about 6 months apart in 2006-7.

Lessons from their character and actions (in no particular order)

Be of service to others

Both my parents served their communities. Among his service activities, Dad was president of our Little League and served as a volunteer umpire for years. He took on a lot of educational and mentoring responsibilities at our church as well. Mom was an officer on several town level political committees and the Junior League. She also co-wrote/edited a number of church publications over the years, including a church history that included 350 yrs of material (a New England Congregational church, so history dates to only a bit after Mayflower).

They didn’t need to be asked to serve and they gave freely. Their perspective was “well someone has to do it” and so did things without (much) complaint or drama. I think peers would describe them as pillars of the community. So for me, I guess the example was not whether to be of service, but how and where.

Hard work won’t kill you…

Both my parents were committed professionals who set examples. My mom was offended by a misplaced (or inappropriately used) punctuation mark. She would pour over galleys, trying to get the language perfectly right. Our dining room table would be taken over by pages and pages of the church history as it was being developed. She was visibly committed to doing what it took to get things done. My dad’s work was less visible to me, but he traveled and sacrificed for us. He was a big believer in the idea that if you want it bad enough you can usually outwork people.  Both worked very hard in their own particular ways.

Do good work. It matters…

Both my parents were good at what they did and had high standards. Neither was a 4.0 GPA superstar in school, but both were professionals and cared deeply about doing good work. They set an example in retrospect, but this message was communicated more through feedback on my own quality of work (or lack thereof).

I have a terrible memory for specific situations and events. It’s really pretty bad. I joke that my memories are stored “in the cloud,” with the cloud being my mother, my wife and my best friend’s heads. So I had forgotten how direct my dad’s feedback could be. I think of him as a really nice guy who was VERY measured in giving advice. But he was a tough judge.

I was reflecting a few years ago to a high school friend about needing to ease up a little on my “millennial” students, maybe starting with more emphasis on what went well rather than driving straight to what needed to improve.

My friend immediately pointed out how much like my dad that was. I was surprised when he reminded me of an assignment he and I worked on together back in the day. He was the top student in the class and I did OK, so we knew we had the benefit of the doubt on the assignment. I’d call our effort level “satisficing.” Enough to earn the “A”, but no more. My dad had quietly watched without saying much. When informed weeks later about our good grade, the lecture came. Something to the effect of “you may pull the wool over the teacher’s eyes, but you boys know you didn’t do your best. I’d give you a ‘C’ based on what you’re capable of.”

So there it is. I didn’t even realize that message had sunk in. With my students my message has become “how much value did you leave on the table for your clients?” In other words, what could you have done better or gotten to with more focus or execution?

That’s Dad (and I’m pretty sure a lot of my grampa Phil Miller, quite the Prussian task master…)

As I talk to students about career issues, I try to make a point about this. Success and progression are sure boosted by doing great work consistently.

Love the process of what you do

My mom was an editor. She liked to write, edit, design and publish. Whether it was editing the Farmington Valley Herald or investor communications for a real estate investment firm, she was clear about what she did and more importantly didn’t like to do. Every two years at the paper, the managing editor would resign. Mom would be offered the job. She would graciously decline because the managing editor doesn’t get to do that much editing. They run the paper. She didn’t want to run the paper. Case closed.

This clarity of purpose and focus on love of her craft left an impression. I push mentees to understand the process of doing their preferred jobs. Often people are in love with the spoils of that path, but don’t really understand or enjoy the work itself. Doing things you don’t like takes a toll over time and isn’t sustainable.

Be kind and think of others first. It usually doesn’t cost you anything…

I don’t think I ever saw my parents be unkind to anyone outside the family. They always started from a position of graciousness and “what can I do to help?”

My mom in particular was unbelievable thoughtful. She remembered everything about everyone. Our family lawyer, who we knew only slightly, told me that when we were dealing with my dad’s passing, she and he were chatting about ice cream. He mentioned loving a particular flavor you could only get at one place 30 minutes out of town. She showed up at the next meeting with several pints she had gone out of her way to get. (Keep in mind she was already deeply ill with her own as yet undiagnosed pancreatic cancer and had little energy.) Really? Who does that anymore?

These little acts of kindness from her were countless. Hard act to follow, but she set the bar high.

It’s probably not coincidental that she was beloved.

Teaching and coaching are important and noble…

As I mentioned earlier, my dad was an instinctive coach. He enjoyed it and I assume was really good at it. He ended up focusing on leadership development as his professional calling and did it at an F500 company.

As an example, I actually had a former employee of his come up to me at his funeral and tell me, “I hadn’t seen your Dad in over 25 years, but when I worked for him he changed my life and I wanted to come pay my respects.” Dad had encouraged him to expand his horizons, get a PhD and, subsequently, he had loved his career and far exceeded his own expectations.

One can only hope to have that kind of impact.

So I took the big picture value away, but I also learned a few specific things as well.

-       Don’t make people come to you. You can read the prior post for more color…

-       Let people reach their own conclusion. Dad was great at asking good questions and would rarely offer his direct opinion on what path he thought you should take. It could drive you crazy, but his perspective was “own your choices.” He was there to help but not to steer.

-       Be available. Sometimes people just need 5 minutes to be heard. Those 5 minutes might save a week of e-mails or silent confusion. It also makes people feel more “love” from you.

Part 2 can be found here and Part 3 here.

My friend has gone through a gradual “falling out of love” at their firm. A few changes in leadership lead to subtle changes in vision and incentives and all of the sudden what was once a great, collaborative place has become fairly unpleasant to work at. When things change you can become “part of the problem” because you are aligned to the legacy culture and the new powers-that-be see that as an issue. Now the clock is ticking… Let’s talk about three implications.

First, at a personal level:

Well before you get to a breakup, there are little signals. The minor disagreement that people over-react to or the honest mistake that gets ascribed to lack of effort or caring. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about. The “canary in the coal mine” is losing the benefit of the doubt.

If you’ve lost it, it should be clear if you pay attention. Are your boss or co-workers immediately assuming you did something nefarious or deceptive when a situation doesn’t go well? Or are you the one that doesn’t “get it”/”isn’t on-board” when challenging thinking? Once trust is lost (fairly or unfairly) it’s hard to get back.

You’ll have to decide if it’s worth trying or whether it’s another brick in the “time to go” wall…

Second, as a manager:

Are you fair to those who have lost your trust? If an employee has lost the benefit of your doubt – have you let them know? Did you deliver feedback that gave them the opportunity to get back in the circle of trust? If not, just let them go or move them out. Don’t be the passive aggressive manager who just lets people linger in purgatory. That will kill the whole team.

I just finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and was amazed at Jobs’ clarity of vision as to who he thought was “brilliant” and who was a “bozo”. He also emphasized frankness. Then he just fired the bozos. That’s not my approach, but I do encourage you to deal with the loss of trust and move to build a team you do have faith in.

Finally, as an addendum to “Is it time to go” post:

This raises a larger point about getting specific in how you define the categories in my simple example on evaluating whether to stay or go. This could fit under my “culture” category, but is specific to my friend’s situation. So remember to tailor the framework to your own situation. I rarely have involved templates, because I think they tend to allow people to check their brains at the door. Take simple, but powerful ideas and adapt them to your own needs.

So do you still have the benefit of the doubt?

So when is it time to leave?

We’ll walk through evaluating the situation dispassionately to ensure a quality (rather than purely emotional) decision.

Note – I’ll stipulate that I’m talking about leaving a company, not just changing positions. Some of the same logic applies, but the company change makes it a relatively larger decision.

Question 1 – What’s bugging me?

I’m going to assume you are in a position where you are considering a change. Start with a simple question: “why am I considering moving on?” There are a ton of sensible reasons that are natural. In the normal course of any role, we can feel unhappy, stalled, underpaid, underappreciated, badly treated, stressed….the whole gamut of emotions.

The real question is when do these feelings rise to a level that drives you to look elsewhere?

The biggest “satisfaction” question to work through is “am I generally happy and things suck right now?” vs. “there’s no way this is likely to change in the reasonable future”.

To answer this question, you need to disaggregate the problem. First, get to a personal definition of “satisfaction/happiness”. There are a number of dimensions that make sense. I suggest a balanced scorecard that includes your broad life-goals and has work built in. Elements include:

The nature of your work: Do you actually like the day-to-day of what you do?

I find that people under-estimate the importance of this earlier in their careers. They “over-index” on pay, title, prestige because those are externally validated. Joy in the process doesn’t get talked about a lot.

The quality of your team – Do you like who you work with?

If you do it sure helps keep an even keel and having fun, even when things are tough.

The culture of your company or business unit – Does it work for you?

If your basic personality doesn’t mesh with your employer’s culture it can be hard going. “Fit” actually matters.

Your compensation – Are you paid fairly?

If you don’t know, find out. Figure out both internal (relative to peers in your company) and external (relative to similar jobs at other companies) equity. If you aren’t paid fairly, here are some thoughts on getting a raise. If you are, let it go. But either way, you should be able to get data.

Career goal alignment – Is this job helping move you in the direction you want to go?

If you have a plan, is this a part of it? If you don’t have a plan, figure one out!

Lifestyle – Are you able to live the life you want given work requirements?

This takes a little thought and the changes over time may surprise you. My basic expectations of personal control have changed dramatically over the last 20 yrs. So remember to continually calibrate.

Meaning – Does your job give you some degree of meaning that is important to you?

Are you mission driven and work is a big part of this? I think of my minister, or my friends who are teachers or physicians. Jobs that have a clear service component that drives some societal good can be powerful motivators.

These categories are not scientific, but they work for me. Feel free to adapt them. But once you decide on your categories, then what? I’m a big proponent of writing things down and forcing yourself to be specific about how you feel. So here’s a way to get this on a single sheet of paper.

1 – Write each category down on the left (or put it into a spreadsheet)

2 – Write an “operational definition” to the right of the name. It needs to be a one sentence definition of how YOU define it.

3 – Rank order the categories. They can’t all be equally important. Whether you rank them 1-N and sort, or you allocate 100 points across them doesn’t really matter. What matters is you force yourself to confront your values.

4 – Quantify/rate your current satisfaction. You could do High/Med/Low, score it 1-3…whatever. However you do it, force yourself to evaluate it.

5 – Sort based on leading “dissatisfiers”.

Mock Example

Now we have a tangible starting point to evaluate where you are.

Taking the (mock) example above, it’s quickly clear that what I’m most concerned with is the day-to-day tasks and perceived career progression problems in my current role. I can eliminate a bunch of buckets of worries (pay, meaning etc.) and focus in on what’s really bugging me.

Question 2 – Can what’s bugging me be changed?

It’s up to you to be hard-headed is deciding both IF and over WHAT TIME FRAME changes can occur.

For example, if you don’t like the day-to-day work you’re doing, but can see a new position on the horizon in the next six months that might better align with your career goals then waiting may be worth it.

But don’t enter into magical thinking. It’s easy to defer issues, kicking them down the road. Be honest with yourself about where you stand. Having defined what’s bugging you already, be realistic about the likelihood of change. Also remember that the larger the organization, the slower any likely change will be. A former colleague refers to the “rule of pi”, noting that most things take 3.14159 times as long as you think. (That’s a precise and universal bureaucratic constant).

Question 3 – Do I care enough to try and change it?

Not a trivial question. I’ve faced several situations in my career where I thought I knew what needed to be done and believed it could be done, but I knew I didn’t have the energy or will to drive the change. I didn’t want it badly enough.

So given how the pros and cons in your assessment stack up, do you care enough?

If not, it’s probably time to go…

Question 4 – Have I considered everything in reaching my decision to leave?

A few considerations before you pull the trigger…

Risk: What are my switching costs?

People underestimate the value of relationships and persistence. Many Sr Execs made it there thru staying power as much or mare than for sheer performance. So just be sure you aren’t leaving career value on the table out of shorter term frustration.

Also – if you have three kids (like I do), your definition of “risk” is different than my recent grads who are OK eating ramen and sleeping on someone else’s couch. So don’t be hasty before considering consequences.

Options: How good is your exit opportunity?

Leaving presumes (for most) having a place to go. I like to think about whether you are leaving something or going to something. Recognizing that there’s always a bit of both, I’d encourage you to make sure the positive feelings about the new opportunity are pretty high and that it addresses the key dis-satisfiers you’ve laid out. Here are a few thoughts on searches.

Traps to avoid:

Leaving too soon – I see a lot of “jumping”. 3-5 years somewhere is worth a lot more than 1-2. You show potential employers persistence and progression. You also learn A LOT more. Really. Somebody else wooing you and being offered 10% more isn’t that big a deal, so don’t get sold on a bad move prematurely.

Staying too long – On  the other hand, don’t let too much moss grow on you. At a certain point, you are potentially losing your market value. Baseball GM Branch Rickey is famous for saying “better to trade a player a season early than a season late”. Don’t ride a bad situation into the ground.

Paving the way out through underperforming – A variant of staying too long, this is the “I really want to leave, but can’t summon the will. So I’ll just dog it.” Bad, bad, bad…Destroys personal and career capital. You’ll both piss off colleagues, get a bad review and damage your future prospects.

A final thought on the “long-term”. Much like my views on networking, I view this self-assessment as part of larger and continuous cycle. Don’t fixate on “am I happy/learning/advancing” everyday. But do set aside time 2-4 times per year to actually think about it. If you don’t define goals and then reflect on progress, you’ll never recalibrate.

I think we’d all rather be in positions to move from good situation to good situation. This requires you to have some degree of self-awareness, but also to be developing a hopper of interesting opportunities continuously. If you are good and active, you may be surprised what finds you.

So should I stay or go? I don’t know, but now you have a suggestion for how to work through it…

One of the joys of my job and life is the number of smart folks I get to be around. I gain a ton from their collective wisdom.  I picked up a gem this week from friend Chris Kopka. He passed on one of his colleagues’ distilled views of what it takes to make sales consistently.

It goes like this, “Conviction sells, Emotion buys, Logic pays for it.”

Perfect. It immediately struck me as exactly right and neatly sums up years of sales and marketing experience and it’s a bit Yoda-like in brevity (“No try, only do”).

In my experience, to drive through to a final decision you really need all three working at the same time. Like a three legged stool.

Conviction sells

One of the first things I was taught by experienced sales staff was “selling starts at ‘no’.” If you can’t get past “no”, you’re just taking orders. You have to be driven, believe in the value of what you’re selling and value your customers to really have conviction.

If you have it, you’ll persist and grind to deliver. If you don’t, you’ll quit early and not get anywhere.

Emotion buys

Of course it does. I think of this as “what does my lizard brain want?”

My son just had to write a brief homework on “wants vs. needs”. He did a nice job of articulating the difference. Then his class was asked “Have you ever been greedy and wanted something you didn’t need?”  His succinct answer? “No.”

I asked him about it and he said he might have wanted something he didn’t need, but he’d never been “greedy”. Right.

We’re getting an iMac for the kids to use for school. I will pay more because it’s beautiful, well designed and I’ve coveted one for awhile. So we need a computer, but we want a Mac. Emotion.

I need sustenance but I want a meaty/cheesy pizza. Emotion.

Emotion won’t always carry the day, but without it you’re just pitching stuff. This is why so many of us emphasize telling stories. Stories connect me to a larger vision and can activate different parts of my brain than spreadsheets can.

Friend and uber-presentation coach Mary Milla recently spoke to my class about delivering a compelling talk. She used a Steve Jobs product launch presentation as one of her models, noting he delivers a lot of very tech oriented details…but AFTER he pulls you in with a story connecting the details to a bigger vision.

Logic Pays

In most business situations you can be as emotional as you want, but usually someone has to sign off on a financial model of some kind. A savings plan, growth model, estimated cash flow…something.  The story will get you only so far if the math doesn’t work.

So evidence and facts are important, just often not sufficient.

The opportunity that the seller has passion and belief in, connects with the “buyer” in a deeper way and is backed with good data will tend to sell better than anything lacking at least one leg of the stool.

So remember, Conviction sells, Emotion buys, Logic pays for it. And without all three nobody’s buying anything.